


Thank the Dawnbreaker

by NorroenDyrd



Series: The Shyest Vampire [4]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Romance, Best Friends, Dawnbreaker, Descent into Madness, Drama, F/M, Fights, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Male Friendship, Mind Control, Mind Games, Near Death Experiences, POV Alternating, POV First Person, POV Inanimate Object, POV Multiple, Possession, Rescue, Secret Identity, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Vampire Slayer(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 07:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12031272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Three heroes: Ria of the Companions, a young Nord named Erik the Slayer, who referes to himself as the Dragonborn, and Erik's Bosmeri friend Midir, who is not all he seems - find themselves doing the will of Meridia and cleansing her Sanctum. The Daedra's sacred blade, Dawnbreaker, which has been languishing for far too long without use, senses their approach and, discovering that Midir the Bosmer bears the curse of vampirism, decides to take over the minds of his friends so that they might 'cleanse' him. It does not matter to the Daedric weapon that Midir is actually kind and benevolent, and that his friends love him (and not just platonically, in Ria's case). Dawnbreaker knows better: the vile undead creature must be destroyed, for the mortals' own good. They will be thankful later.





	1. Chapter 1

For many years, I had languished in an abandoned temple, where the faithful once venerated my mistress, the great Lady Meridia, the infinite, the radiant, the weaver of life's sacred energies. And as the numberless fractions of this lonely, empty eternity passed by, one after the other, like a dreary sequence of droplets oozing from the tip of a stalactite, the flame that my Lady had breathed in me, so that I might incinerate the unnatural, twisted spawn of darkness, grew dimmer and dimmer. Once a weapon of holy warriors, the scourge of the undead, I was now a useless bobble, gathering dust in the very farthest of the temple's deserted hallways, while all around me, ghostly shades roamed, black as the heart of the starless night.  
  
In life, these nearly mindless wretches used to be the Stormcloak and Imperial warriors, like those that still keep clashing in the blood-soaked battlefields of Skyrim, making the snow thaw with steaming jets of crimson. But now that they had been separated from their bodies - the rancid, rotting husks on the stone floor - these apparitions had become warped, drenched in darkness like in poison, cruelly bound to the will of the vile necromancer that had dared to take up residence in my mistress's sanctum, filling the air with foul incantations, where once there was the soothing murmur of prayers to Meridia and the pure silver glow of her Beacon.  
  
Denied the peace of Sovngarde and Aetherius, the necromancer's undead servants were now driven only by a single, simple purpose: to make certain that their master was not disturbed. Once, in the hands of a capable champion, I could have put an end to their cursed vigil, swiftly passing through their inky, billowing forms, and making them fade away... But I had grown weak, too weak to properly contain my Lady's cleansing flame - so all I could do was watch, as darkness encroached deeper and deeper into the temple, seeping through every corner, permeating every stone, bold and unstoppable... Until - until they came.  
  
It appeared that the Beacon of my mistress, the key to filling her sanctum with light again, had been found in a cobwebbed chest in some forsaken ruin, by a band of adventurers - who, of course, initially just had to mistake the great relic for what their ilk refers to as 'loot'.  
  
I deduced that from listening to their voices, which resounded through the desolate temple till they reached my chamber, and awoke me from my uneasy, feverish slumber. They were new, those voices, quite unlike anything I had heard in a long time. The voices of the living. Foolishly carefree at times, as many mortals are prone to getting (especially infant mortals, who have walked Nirn for less than a hundred years, let alone thirty or forty) - but also full of resolve, and determination, and hope.  
  
The life force of these two infants warmed the dim, frozen hallways, and was so vibrant that I even got a general notion of what they looked like. There were two of them, a tall, slightly clumsy male Nord and a smaller, quicker female Imperial, both in the earliest spring of their fleeting mortal existence. I had encountered the like of them before, among the countless fighters and travellers that had, throughout the ages, made attempts to unleash my holy fire. A man and a woman, journeying together as a battle team, discovering the hidden secrets and braving the dangers of Nirn, rescuing one another time and again (preferably under some rather over-the-top circumstances), and gradually developing what I have heard mortals call 'feelings'. I do not quite understand the latter, as the only impulse that truly matters to me is the honourable and sacred hunger for undead flesh - but I know that 'feelings' are inevitable after two adventurers fitting the description of these two have been practicing their craft long enough.  
  
Still, predictably as their adventure was going to play out, their presence was quite welcome.  
  
They strode forth with the sort of joyful, confident strength that is typical of humans their age - and as I sensed them approach, the lukewarm embers that were just barely flickering in my heart started glowing ever brighter, ever stronger, and spitting out dazzling sparks, which promised to mould into a renewed scorching blaze, as pure and powerful as in the days of my former glory. For with each step the adventurers took, I could feel the shadowy pall wore thinner and thinner.  
  
They were unafraid to fight, these little mortals who had stumbled upon a 'pretty ball of light' and ended up following it here. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they pushed back the restless shades, reducing them to slurping puddles of ectoplasm with their crushing sword swings and rapid volleys of arrows. I rejoiced at their assured, unhalting progress through the temple, and prayed that one of them might lift me from my resting place, and harness all my dormant power, and become Meridia's new Champion.  
  
But, happy as I was to await these eager young explorers, even back then, I already became aware of the little smoky clot of undead essence that kept trailing in the two mortals' wake, never falling behind them more than a few paces, with such constancy and persitence that it might as well have been one of their own shadows.  
  
This dark entity was unlike the ghosts that haunted the temple; indeed, it seemed to have been birthed by the frozen wastelands beyond the sanctum walls. But its vile, tainted nature was still glaringly obvious, which made its presence by the adventurers' side quite disconcerting. Why didn't they turn around, I asked myself, recoiling at the foul whiff of darkness. Why weren't they troubled by this uncanny disturbance in their aura? Why didn't they face the shadow and banish it, the way they so readily, so fearlessly banished the necromancer's otherworldly slaves?  
  
Perhaps they were merely oblivious to being tailed? Perhaps their imperfect, still fledgling human minds were not as attuned to noticing traces of evil aura as I had become, thanks to the blessings of Meridia? Perhaps the dark clot was taking advantage of that, creeping behind them unnoticed while waiting for an opportune moment to strike, to consume them, to end their quest before they reached me?  
  
No... This could not be, I told myself, spitting out more scorching sparks. The adventurers... The foolish mortals... They were far from unaware of the shadow. More than that, they were all travelling together!  
  
During their skirmishes with the necromancer's guardians, the man and the woman would often turn to their inky tail, asking it to cover them as they retreated to a more advantageous position, or too heal any wounds the other shades may have managed to inflict. And, inexplicably, the smoky black cloud obeyed.  
  
It repelled the shades to prevent the two companions from getting overwhelmed, and to buy them a few precious moments to catch their breath. And when either of them staggered, marred by a scarlet gash after a piercing thrust of a shade's dark blade, the little shadow quelled their bleeding and helped them get to their feet again.  
  
They even had a name for this... vile, dark thing. 'Midir', they called it, addressing it as if it were a person. 'Thank you, Midir!'. 'Shor's Bones, you saved me for, what, fifth time today, Midir!'. 'No, stand back, Midir - this time, I'll manage on my own! I don't want you to get hurt!'.  
  
For a terrible, devastating moment, the stirring flames in my heart began to sizzle down again. Was this undead thing, this perversion of nature, the two adventurers' bound servant? Had I been mistaken about them? Was their true purpose to help spread corruption even further across Meridia's sacred grounds, like the necromancers they were?  
  
But - but their life force felt so unlike the evil that coiled within the intruder that had invaded the temple first. This became especially obvious when ghe adventurers finally came bursting into the final chamber, and challenged the necromancer to open combat. His response was an enraged his and an immobilizing flurry of conjured snow that he unleashed in the adventurers' path.  
  
The little undead thing leapt before the Nord and the Imperial, without hesitation - the way any mind-wiped slave would leap to defend his master. But then, the Nord charged after the thing, and knocked it out of the flurry's way, while the Imperial pulled back her bow string, managing to wound the necromancer in the shoulder, and then raced off, switching to a sword to tackle her adversary in close range.  
  
'Gotcha, old friend,' the Nord said, pulling the undead thing up from the rime-encrusted ground. 'Let's go before Ria gobs all the glory for herself!'  
  
Friend... This word, too, is something that I have never properly understood - but I do believe that mortals use it to describe people they trust. And, after the Nord had uttered that word, I came to realize what the undead thing was doing in this team of adventurers. It was not serving them - it was using them.  
  
All of this help in battle - back in the haunted hallways, and now, too, as the thing seared the necromancer's flesh with strong blasts of lightning magic till he fell back, right onto the two humans' blades - it had been nothing but a ruse. A ploy to gain their trust. To get them to call it 'friend'.  
  
It all made sense now. After all, the thing was not just any undead. It was a vampire. Within such close proximity, I could see it plainly now. A vampire wearing the flesh of a small, slightly tremulous Wood Elf - quiet, soft-spoken even in the midst of a raging fight, little short of apologizing to the necromancer for dealing him a near-fatal blow. And undead of this kind are conniving and manipulative by nature. Capable of nothing but cold, hard-hearted cruelty, which is often hidden beneath a compelling mask to trick their victims.  
  
The hapless mortal children were being tugged on a leash by a scheming master - saved up as a prized dish for a revolting feast, an affront to Meridia... And they did not even know it. They just stood there, dazed and fumbling like sleepwalkers, and even chuckled when, the necromancer having wheezed out his very last grkan, the vampire turned to face them and said, in a small, seemingly dismayed voice,  
  
'Oh no! You are.. d-drenched in blood and ectoplasm! I m-must help you clean yourselves up! D-Daedric Princes don't appreciate it when people come for an audience all g-grimy... Unless it's Namira, of course... B-but it is not Namira, is it? It's M-Meridia... We... We'll have to report to her and...'  
  
'Wait!' the Nord said with a laugh. 'You aren't scared of her, are you?'  
  
Perceptive, for so young a mortal. Of course the vampire would be terrified of my illustrious Lady. She is the creature's mortal enemy. As am I. The Daedric Prince's relic. A sacred weapon, forged for the sole noble goal of cleansing every last corner of Nirn of undead filth... Or, as the Nord boy referred to me when he finally noticed me - 'shiny' (apparently, that is his word of choice when speaking of hallowed artefacts).  
  
The boy was the first to touch me, and to ascend in a beam of light to receive Lady Meridia's blessing. He has been chosen as my mistress's champion. I have made sure of that.  
  
When his wide-eyed gaze first fell upon me, and his lips nearly noiselessly formed that awe-struck word, 'Shiny', I mustered all my power to form a bond with him. And succeeded - without even overexerting myself, since, what with the light of the Beacon now flaring bright overhead and the intruding necromancer lying in a pool of his own blood, my former strength was returning to me, with the force of a torrential stream that flows back into its cracked dry bed after an arid summer. Only this shall be a stream of unquenchable flame.  
  
We shall spread the flame together, the boy and I, letting it rage and rise and engulf all that is vile and unseemly in the realm of Nirn. And with every new victory, every new blow to Meridia's enemies, I shall enter ever deeper into the boy's mind, till my thoughts become his thoughts, and we get merged into one. A single entity. The fearsome, merciless Dawnbreaker - the person inseparable from the sword, like the infamous Umbra. Only instead of the blood and souls of the innocent, the boy shall feed me on the shadows of the night, on the corruption of dark magic, on the foul darkness of undeath.  
  
And then... Then, when we are one, I shall make him see. I shall make him understand what a repulsive monster he and his Imperial companion have been travelling with. I shall make him raise me over the creature's chest, and dig me deep into its icy heart.  
  
And he shall be thankful.


	2. Chapter 2

'Whoah, what a fortnight! It feels like ages since we camped out somewhere not stuffy and mouldy! Not that I don't like dungeon delves - this is the sort of thing I live for! But... But I can't close my eyes without getting dreams of growling draugr or hissing wraiths or some such...'  
  
'W-wai... Wait... A... A fortnight? Has it truly been a fortnight, Ria? I... I didn't even realize... The time... It sort of b-blended together for me'.  
  
'Oh gods, don't I see what you mean! Diving in and out of those dark, dank caves and crypts - in and out, in and out... It can really mess with your head, can't it? I told you my dreams are now filled with all sorts of nastiness... But you - you barely sleep at all! I can't imagine what it's like for you. All these fights, without catching a breath. How tired you must be'.  
  
'Oh Ria... I am... I am hum-humbled... And also - a bit amazed by how right you are. I... I do tend t-to go for long spells without sleep... And now - now I rest even less... Since I... I am...'  
  
'What was that, Midir? I am sorry: you are kind of...'  
  
'Oh. I am mumbling again, aren't I? My apologies. I was saying that I am worried about Erik'.  
  
'Divines, me too! I was thinking of saying goodbye to you two and heading back to Whiterun: contracts are probably piling up taller than my head, and Skjor will roast my hide for dillydallying so long without dropping by and reporting to the Circle: I'm still, uh, a junior whelp, after all... But - but I can't just leave you behind! Not now! The Dragonborn... Erik... He is not at all like himself! I mean... Even the fiercest heroes shouldn't be this... Bloodthirsty! And certainly not him! He used to be so... so sweet - and now he does not care about anything save for hacking things to pieces with that new sword of his! I... I barely recognize him - and I think he may need our help!'  
  
'The sword... Yes - this might be it! Thank... Thank you, Ria... I was g-going to ask you to stay... B-but I didn't dare...'  
  
The (deceptively!) faltering voice trails to a barely coherent stutter, and the vampire jerks back its cold white hands, which have been hovering next to those of the young Imperial, almost holding her fingers. But not quite. Not quite. The creature is playing the long game, slow and cunning, patiently acting out the role of a stammering buffoon, to get the girl to lower her guard in its presence. Which she has, having tossed back her weapon carelessly and grown completely absorbed by the conversation, as she sits next to a sagging little tent among towering snowdrifts, side by side with a monster, so blind to its true nature that no blazing firelight would be enough.  
  
And when she looks at the creature next to her, her smiling face betrays some of the symptoms I have observed in other mortals that were on the verge of developing 'feelings'. Redness of cheek, brightness of eye - somewhat akin to intoxication. The symptoms intensify when the vampire holds her gaze - which never lasts long, for the beast prefers to look down, its face hidden by a curtain of black hair. But even these brief exchanges are more than enough. She is ensnared. A meal that is almost leaping into the vampire's maw of its own volition.  
  
But not for long now. Not for long. Soon, she shall be free - another soul rescued from the clutches of a creature of the night by the assured strike of the Dawnbreaker. Her savior is almost ready.  
  
He is the one who is resting in the lopsided tent, while his companion and the conniving beast talk of his (utterly righteous!) bloodlust. I have allowed his body to lay itself down and restore its strength. We have done good, hard work - racing across Skyrim, from cavern to ruin to cemetery, and taking the fight to undead in all shapes and forms; but I must remind myself that there is only so much strain this vessel of flesh can take. Some rest is needed, if I am to avoid damaging  this mortal. But as his body slumbers, I continue to work on his mind.  
  
In part, it has been fairly easy, directing the young Nord to do my will. The will of Meridia. During the first few days, I merely stirred his natural eagerness. I flared up a little as he clutched my hilt, standing with his companions  at the mouth of a cavern where I had sensed the rancid odour of decay - the constant companion of undeath. And then, I let my voice echo inside his mortal skull, repeating and emphasizing the words that escaped his lips. The words that he still believed to be his own.  
  
'Oooh, look at this cave! I wonder what's inside? Trouble - or maybe treasure? Let's head in!'  
  
'Head in, head in, head in,' I urged him, whilst my fire flared a tiny bit more, and began to travel through his veins in a powerful, compelling heat wave. He thought it was just excitement, the anticipation of an adventure - but it was me. It was all me.  
  
It was me rejoicing when he took a swing at a draugr, turning its grey, desiccated sinew black and crispy, and then cried out, 'Hah! Take that!'.   
  
It was me filling him with resolve, pushing his stamina to its very last limits, breathing in his second, third, fourth wind, as he raced forward, ignoring the weight of his own armour and the panting Imperial's pleas to 'Wait up!'. It was me sharpening his senses and lighting his path, so that he could focus on his lofty goal: tracking every last corrupted wight through the endless winding maze of underground tunnels, and making it pay for the grave crime of existing.  
  
It was me guiding him, whispering when it would be the right time to strike, whenever he found himself surrounded by gurgling shambling corpses, with no promise of help coming from the Imperial and the vampire (for he had outrun them again). It was me creating a blinding burst of golden light, both inside the murky crypt that he was exploring and within his own chest; the burst would leave him elated, overwhelmed by the taste of Meridia's power - and craving more. Ever more. More undead falling to his blazing strikes. More smouldering ash left in his wake. More triumphant victories over the forces of darkness.   
  
But it was when the craving came that my glorious mission started turning somewhat challenging. The boy enjoys adventuring, it seems, discovering new places, admiring all things 'shiny', and getting praise for his swordsmanship - but killing... not as much. The failing of a mortal's logic, I suppose.  
  
I am a blade, the bearer of a Daedric flame; I have no qualms about devouring the undead (on the contrary, it brings me immense satisfaction to know that I am culling the vile brood of Meridia's enemies). The boy, on the other hand... Before I started properly talking sense into him, he seemed to regard the destruction of any creature, even one that was already dead, as a necessary measure, not at all pleasant - even slightly revolting. So when I began to instill joy into him after every kill, this kept hurtling him into a confused daze - until, at one point, he burst into tears, trembling fearfully, with his free hand pressed tightly against his mouth, as though he was trying to slap himself for smiling, just a moment before, at the sight of a half-charred draugr writhing at his feet, a thread-like, matted braid just barely betraying that, in life, if must have been a woman.  
  
Just then, the vampire caught up with him, took at long look at his puffy, tear-streaked face, and placed its claws on his shoulder (pretending to be comforting him, the Champion of Meridia - the gall!).  
  
'Erik... Erik? What's wrong?' it asked, with an almost convincing illusion of gentleness in its voice.  
  
Within such close proximity to this bloodsucking beast, my flames spat and broiled with hatred to its kind, the way they always do. My sacred wrath gave me more strength, allowing to get a better hold of the boy's mind, and silently command him to reply,  
  
'Nothing. I... I just stubbed my toe'.  
  
After that incident, I realized that, if I truly wanted my perfect plan to succeed, I needed to be more forceful when spreading more influence over the boy's mind. More... invasive. No, no - 'invasive' is a word linked to evil. That necromancer was invasive when he let darkness into my radiant Lady's halls; I am not. I am doing what must be done to cleanse his thoughts. To fully prepare him for serving as a vessel for my mistress's banishing light.  
  
During the days that followed the boy's weeping outburst, and up until now, I have been fighting relentlessly for dominance over his thoughts, pressing on, undaunted, even though he may have rebelled against me a couple of time, shaking his head violently and whispering to himself in desperation, 'No, no, wait - I can't be hearing things, can I?'.   
  
Fortunately for my mission, when he was still independent enough to protest, the boy never did figure out that the 'stupid whispers, buzzing in my head, gah!' came from me (which could have given him the foolish idea to try and get rid of me). And very soon, his head-shaking receded and stopped altogether, and he started listening. He still keeps listening.   
  
By saving his life, time and again, with the explosive raw force of my flame enchantment, I have made sure that he hardly ever sheathes me and always keeps me by his side. And since I am so close, I can talk to him ceaselessly, blessing his mind with Meridia's wisdom. I can give him orders, each one more urgent than the next. I can study his thoughts, and take them apart, and burn away all the traces of imperfection. All the things that used to turn him into a weepy child, foolish enough to mourn the demise of some worthless undead creature.   
  
Things like his memories. Irrelevant visions that he once mistakenly believed to be important, and preserved them inside his mind, only to allow them to turn into a distraction and to make him soft.  
  
I started with hazy, rosy-coloured dreams, which would take my young mortal back some twenty years, to a time when everything in the world seemed big to him - big and frightening, prompting him to seek comfort in the arms of a balding man in a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and a mead-stained apron. I have erased these traces of the long embraces that they shared, every last one of them. They are irrelevant to the quest of Meridia's champion - and I know that the boy will thank me for turning his memories to cinders.  
  
Just three or four days ago, on the way from one cairn to another, the adventurers came across a stray kitten - a young Khajiit that had gotten lost while playing in the wilds and couldn't find his way to his parents' trading tents. Escorting the sniffling little thing back to the caravan had no bearing on Meridia's glorious cleansing - but I did not try to prevent it, for at least (as I reasoned) it might tempt the vampire to prey on the much weaker, more vulnerable cub, and serve to open the champion's eyes sooner.  
  
Regrettably, that did not happen. The vampire remained deceptively tame, even allowing the Khajiit to climb onto its shoulders after he began to complain that his tender little foot pads had gotten blistered from all the walking. And its voice was quiet as ever when the cub took to nuzzling against the creature's hair, prompting it to ask,  
  
'What are you doing?'   
  
'Cleaning up this one's face,' the Khajiit meowed in reply. 'This one doesn't want to let the grown-ups see that he has been crying. This one is too ashamed'.  
  
'You cried because you were scared,' the vampire explained. 'There... There is no shamed in that. Everyone gets scared, now and then. Even... Even the Dragonborn...'  
  
It paused, choking, and hastened to add,  
  
'I mean... You must have been scared of something, right Erik? As a child, perhaps?'.  
  
'I don't remember,' the boy replied, and his voice was so hard and cold that I shone bright with glee. He truly did not remember. And thankfully, he still does not.  
  
He does not remember being a child. He does not remember being afraid. He does not remember doing anything, save for clearing several dens of undead in the span of a few days, closing his eyes for a few hours to let me talk to him in his sleep, and then repeating it all again. And nor should he.   
  
All that is left to complete is a little bit of clean-up work - which I am occupying myself with right now, in the drowsy semi-darkness of the boy's tent, as I rest on his pillow, so close to his temple, where a little vein pulses, in time with my sacred chant.  
  
I am Dawnbreaker. The tool of Meridia, lady of infinite energies. I have been sent to this world to wipe the perversions of necromancy off its surface, once and for all. I have been sent to this world to put nature into impeccable order, to remove all aberrations, to make certain that no monstrous creature lurks in the dark again. I am Dawnbreaker, and nothing shall taint my purity. No errant thoughts or memories, no meaningless affections, no human weaknesses. I am Dawnbreaker, and I shall be flawless.  
  
I am Dawnbreaker. Slowly, I arise from my slumber and look around, golden light burning in my eyes. I reach out to my pillow, where a flame-enthused blade rests, an extension of my arm, the final piece that completes me. As my fingers lock round the hilt, all of my being clicks into place like a dwarven puzzle box. All of the world, and my place in it, is clearly discernible, lit up by the hallowed aura of my mistress. It is time to begin one more new day. One more day of slaying creatures of the night. And I know which creature I should start with.  
  
It edges cautiously towards me as I step out of my tent, shoulders spread out and blade on the ready.  
  
'Erik...' it addresses me, by a name that is no longer mine. 'Erik, I... I think we need to talk. You... You may have been affected by this trophy you c-claimed... two weeks ago. I mean, M-Meridia is a m-more or less benevolent Prince, b-but... But she is still a Daedra. And they amuse themselves by warping human minds'.  
  
'Of course, you would insult my mistress, you twisted beast!' I say, allowing the righteous wrath to flow through my voice in a multitude of echoes - so that the little mortal by the vampire's side staggers back, stricken by my awe-inspiring transformation.  
  
'But I am almost ready to forgive you. For soon, you shall cease to exist'.  
  
'Midir!' the mortal cries out breathlessly, grabbing the creature by the hand with no trace of hesitation. 'Midir, what is he on about? Who is his mistress? He is the Dragonborn, so he must mean Kynareth... But Kynareth can't be so...'  
  
'Meridia...' the monster mouths - ready to cower in fear before my Lady's glory. 'He means Meridia... I was right! By the Mace, why did I have to be right!'  
  
I smile - with the perfect hardness that I have honed within myself.  
  
'You swear by the weapon of your dark master, Meridia's eternal foe; is this a pathetic attempt to intimidate me?'  
  
'No!' for the first time in so long, the vampire's voice grows loud - and at the same time, brittle with an undertone if tears that might have moved a mortal but would never move me. Nothing shall move me.  
  
'No! That... That was force of habit! M-m... M-mimicking my former overlord! You know that Molag Bal is not my master! That I would never, ever...'  
  
'Lies,' I hiss like raging flame, raising my blade - part of myself - far overhead. 'Your kind is capable of nothing but lies! You thrive on deceit and corruption; you are nothing but filth to be cleansed!'  
  
'Erik, please...' the vampire's voice falls to a hoarse moan. 'Not like this... Not in front of...'  
  
'I am not Erik!' I thunder, grabbing the vampire by the throat and pulling it towards me, with perfect ease, my strength sustained by Meridia's fire.   
  
The little mortal tries to prevent me from doing so, but I push her back, so that she sinks to her knees, her ankle twisted at an unnatural angle.  
  
'Erik is no more! You are facing the mighty Dawnbreaker! Be thankful that you get to be slain by such a noble blade!'  
  
'Fight him, Midir!' the mortal shrieks, thumping at the ground with her fists in helpless frustration. 'Use your magic - use anything! Before he... Before this evil thing kills you!'  
  
'I can't,' the vampire whispers, looking into my eyes. It do not know what the creature seeks to find in my gaze - but whatever it is, it is not there. There shall never be anything in my eyes to show sympathy to a vampire.  
  
'I can't... You said so yourself: he needs our help'.  
  
'The only way in which you can help Meridia's cause is by dying without complaint... vampire,' I say, as I make that decisive forward thrust.


	3. Chapter 3

'ERIK, YOU FUCKING MORON! GIVE ME THAT SWORD! I SAID, GIVE ME THAT SWORD! I DON'T CARE IF YOU ARE THE FUCKING DRAGONBORN, I WILL RIP OFF YOUR STUPID HEAD AND STUFF IT UP A BEAR'S BACKSIDE!'  
  
Transformed by her anger into a nigh on mindless beast (I suppose that means that I will have to slay her as well), the mortal hobbles back to her feet and lunges at me, shattering the air with a scream of rage and pain. Such a surprise attack is enough to momentarily confuse even the instrument of Meridia's cleansing. Regrettably, I allow myself to stagger, slipping slightly on the ice crust that cakes the ground, and letting go of the bleeding beast that I was about to finish off.  
  
Ferocious like a sabre cat, the mortal flings her whole weight against me, toppling me over and groping around in a blind attempt to grab at my sword. Even when pinned to the icy ground, I retain a firm grip on the weapon's hilt, no matter how hard the mortal tries to pry my fingers apart, shuddering all over and continuing to curse. In the midst of our struggle, she accidentally gets hold of the blazing blade. The flame-cloaked steel slices deep through the beast hide hand-wraps that have been protecting her from the cold, and then reaches the flesh of her palm, making her skin erupt into oozing blisters and tearing a new outcry of agony out of her throat, whilst my forearm gets showered in a drizzle of hot blood.   
  
What happens next, however, startles me even more than the mortal's desperate leap at me (much to my shame). Screwing her face into a mixture of a pained grimace and a snarl, she clasps her bleeding, pus-moistened hand into a fist (which apparently requires tremendous effort, for she almost chokes on her own wheezing breath) - and then, punches down at my face, splintering the fragile bone in my nose (a bit of an oversight on the Aedra's part, making this particular portion of the human face so embarrassingly breakable).  
  
'RETURN! TO! YOUR! DAMN! SENSES!' the mortal demands, while continuing to punch me and, at the same time, beginning to gasp and hiccup hysterically. 'I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU - BUT I WILL, IF YOU DON'T STOP HURTING MIDIR! Oh dear gods, I just swore to... to kill the Dragonborn... I MEAN IT, THOUGH! I FUCKING MEAN IT!'  
  
Meridia forgive me. I should not have been overcome so easily by such a small, not too battle-hardened mortal. I should not have let her subdue me. I should not have... But I do. Somehow, I do.  
  
There is something inside me, something tiny and whimpering like a young boy that feels terrified of the big, alien world and fumbles around, seeking a parent's protective embrace. It... It makes little sense, but this is as close as I can get to describing this bizarre entity. And I can sense that it wants me to lay still, showered in scalding blood and tears; to endure one punch after another; to shrink my head into my shoulders at the sound of loud, jumbled curses; and to let go of my blade.  
  
And before long, I do just that. I relax my fingers, allowing the hilt to slip free. The mortal seizes the sword instantly and, staggering to an upright pause, limps away, along the edge of the snow-capped cliff where she, the vampire and I have made camp.  
  
A few paces ahead, there is a sheer drop into a deep, dark-blue abyss, with icy waves lapping at the bottom. The sea has been calm thus far, but over the last few minutes, a wind began to rise, and it is now rapidly gaining strength, each gust more powerful and bitterly cold. But neither the wind nor the pain in her ankle seems to deter the mortal: she trudges forth through the snow, and when her injured foot can bear the strain no longer and her legs bend wearily in the knee, she still continues stubbornly down her path, now crawling, with her head bowed forward and her short dark hair whipping madly around her face, matted by the lashes of the wind. In her unburnt hand she holds the sword, and it shines through the snowy haze that gathers round us, like a golden beacon.  
  
My beacon. My blade. A part of me. Being carried further and further away, so that the link between it and the rest of myself stretches thin, threatening to snap at any point. I cannot allow this. I cannot suffer being incomplete.  
  
Having recovered somewhat from all the pounding I have been subjected to, I lift myself up and plough through the snowdrifts after the mortal. Presently, I catch up with her, and drop on top of her with a snarl. The weight of my flesh and armour makes her sink deep into the snow, quickly getting close to suffocating, as it clogs up her nose and mouth and her head vanishes under the waves of sparkling whiteness. But the sword vanishes as well, plunging into the snowdrift with a hiss. Terrified for a moment that I will never catch sight of my pure, fiery core again, I rake my fingers through the mortal's hair and, slipping off her a little way to the side, forcibly yank her upwards, so that she emerges, together with my precious blade.  
  
And again, I somehow let her best me. Again, the whimpering child inside me rears his head, compelling me to linger, to freeze without striking the mortal down, up until she tosses her head abruptly, hitting me with the top of her scalp underneath my jaw, and crawls off, with the blade still in her hands.  
  
It is not far from here to the edge to the cliff. Pushing herself forth in one final exercise of will, the mortal lays flat on her stomach and stretches out her arm, so that the sword dangles over the precipice.  
  
Once more, I clamber to my feet - but, contrary to what my radiant Prince might have expected from me, do not make any further attempts to pursue the insolent Imperial. I just stand and sway, the wind spitting miniscule, razor-sharp crystals of ice into my face; and the tiny child seems to dance and clap in joy. He wants the mortal to toss the blade down, into the churning mass of slush and salty water. He wants to be... Set free?  
  
One, two, three, four, five. The mortal lifts her fingers off the sword's hilt. And down it falls... Down I fall, descending into the watery abyss with no warrior of flesh and bone to catch me as I fall.  
  
The link that I have been forging so tirelessly, with such dedication, is irreparably wearing thin. I am on my own once more; I am incomplete. A mere chunk of enchanted metal, clanking mournfully against the jagged wall of glinting, bluish ice on my way down. There is nothing I can do to keep myself from falling. The lapping water gets closer, closer, swelling underneath me into a boundless expanse of heaving darkness... Till, with a faint splash and a sizzle of extinguished flame, I break the surface - and all at once, seem to grow heavier, plummeting straight to the bottom and entering into a narrow crack between two rocks as though it were a specially prepared sheath.  
  
A dreary sheath. An oppressive sheath. A sheath that will keep me hidden from the world, deprived of my sacred purpose, utterly lost in the dark, with not a single spark of flame remaining within me.  
  
Who knows how long I shall remain here, stuck among barnacle-covered boulders underneath the icy swell of the Sea of Ghosts... A year? A century? An era? Who knows how long I shall bide my time, till a new hand closes round my hilt, and a new heart is touched by Lady Meridia's flames of purification... If that is ever destined to happen at all.  
  
But, confined as I am to this cold, wet murk, I have one thought to console myself with. Before the dismal end of what I thought to be a glorious mission, I did manage to take down that one vampire... Didn't I?


	4. Chapter 4

I... I think I have been calling myself the... the Dawnbreaker. I don't know why. That's not my name - it's the name of that shiny sword that I picked up after we killed a necromancer in the abandoned temple of... some Daedra or other.  
  
It was... The oddest thing, that sword. I think I remember being quite fond of fighting with it. It had nice... Nice flame effects, I suppose. Kicked the draugr backwards into Sovngarde. At least... At least, I hope they went to Sovngarde. Because it will not do for these poor souls to spend all eternity without rest.  
  
But - but anyway. Now that Ria has yanked the blade out of my hand, I feel as if all this time, I have been walking around with an old, smelly, stuffy potato sack on my head, which did not let me see or hear or even breathe properly. Thank Kyne (I am supposed to be swearing by Kyne, right - since I am... you know) - thank Kyne the sack is off now, and I can make out where I am. Clearly, to the last little speck of snow. And I can breathe - oh gods, I can breathe!  
  
The wind is blowing in strong, sweeping gusts, as it so often does in the Pale; it takes hungry little bites at my face and nicks my skin with tiny bits of ice. But it's... It's not that big a deal, because the wind carries the crisp, refreshing smell of sea water, which I can... what was the word... absorb in long, greedy gulps, as if it were my Da's (my Da's... I have the oddest feeling that I had forgotten having a Da... How could I?)  - my Da's finest mead. Or - or no, not mead. Water. Crystal-clear... shiny water, fresh from a well, which you drink after a long, exhausting day in the fields, wishing each draught to last forever.  
  
But even though, just like water, the wind helps me feel less parched and woozy, I can only breathe it in with one nostril. My other one is all clogged up with blood, and even underneath the cold touch of the sea, I can sense the warm pulsing of pain where I have been punched.  
  
It... It was Ria who punched me, I think. At least, she is the only person that I see among all this swooshing, billowing whiteness. So... So that must be her, right? Unless I punched myself, which would have been entirely possible, what with a potato sack over my head.  
  
Ria is a few paces ahead of me, just barely lifting herself up from the blanket of snow, balancing so dangerously close to the edge of the cliff that something invisible, but very, very strong, yanks at my heart, making me race towards her and bend down, hand outstretched, in a hurry to get her as far away from the drop as possible.  
  
'D... Dragon born?' she asks faintly, her voice failing her. 'Are you... Yourself again? I... I am sorry I lost my temper like that... Hit you... Cursed at you... But... But what you did...'  
  
'You... You had no choice, didn't you?'  
  
My question comes out squeaky and muffled, because all of my chest is being squashed from the inside by sickening pain. And this pain grows only stronger when Ria nods.  
  
I search her face as she grabs my fingers: her eyes are wide open, and her pupils seem to be floating on rippling waves that really closely resemble the swell of the sea below our feet.  
  
I can see my reflection in these waves, too - an odd, black shadow, with no... no discernible features. Did I look like that when the blade was in my hand? Was I a faceless shade, menacing and unstoppable; a zombie with darkened vision and no memories; a monster that did something so terrible that Ria, the friendly, bubbly Ria, who has never been anything but eager to have adventures with me (because I am... supposed to... yeah), had to... had to punch me?  
  
Yes. Yes I was.   
  
It comes back to me when I pull Ria upward (and almost fall into the snow myself, because it clearly hurts her too much to stand firmly on both feet, so she has to lean on me for support). It comes back in a new surge of pain, with the speed and force of a giant boulder rolling downhill right at me, threatening to squish me like a bug under its weight.  
  
That - that actually... almost happened to me once, when I accidentally set off a falling rock trap prepared by a bunch of bandits. I would have been flattened into a not too appetizing minced pie - but Midir was there, so he stopped the boulders with a tall ice barrier, which slowed them down just enough for me to scramble out of harm's way...    
  
Midir. That's it. That's why Ria turned on me. The sword... It whispered to me, guided my hand... It made me stab Midir. My best friend. The kind elf who reached out to a stupid kid from a farm in the middle of nowhere and showed him how to become a hero. The person who made me... me. I stabbed him.  
  
He - he looked at me with those great big yellow eyes of his; he begged me for mercy... And all I did was grip tighter at that cursed Daedric thing and plunge the blade into his chest... Not in the heart, I think, and not too deep: Ria didn't let me. But still - he dropped to the ground like one of those straw dummies for training, like... there was no more Midir left in him. And now he is lying in the snow, somewhere out there, weak and wounded and helpless.   
  
It is so startling, so... for the risk of sounding like a milk drinker, so bloody heartbreaking - for Midir to be helpless. He might come off as such sometimes - to people who aren't me and Ria, that is. But he isn't. Far from it.  
  
He is this little voice at the back of your mind that whispers that everything will be all right, even as you grow so lost and scared that you want to scream.  
  
He is this barrier of protective magic that rises, tall and glowing, to shield you from the night (Shor's bones, as a Nord, I would never think that I would come to appreciate all that bizarre hand-waving and light-weaving... But I have - because of my friend).   
  
He is this long black cloak that wraps around a shivering, whimpering child, keeping him or her safe till we find the terrified grown-ups in the smoking ruins of a dragon-ravaged farm.  
  
There things... These protective, reassuring things... They cannot come from someone who is helpless. A helpless Midir is the worst, the most wrong thing that could happen. And it did happen. Because of me.  
  
'I am so slow!' Ria cries out in frustration, waddling by my side on our way back along the cliffside. 'At this rate, we will never manage to get to him in time... Before it's too late! Maybe you'll leave me behind or something?'  
  
I shake my head. My voice is a squeak again, seeming to sound somewhere... out there, far apart from my own body. Like it's someone else talking, and I am just listening, frightened of what the voice is saying.  
  
'What if... What if I suddenly decide to finish him off?'  
  
These words leave Ria just as horror-struck as myself.  
  
'Don't say that!' she whispers, trying to grip me by the front of her cuirass. As her fingers slip, they leave a sticky trace of blood on the metal surface. This makes my stomach heave a little, almost causing me to retch. This - this blood is my doing as well.  
  
'Don't say that! The sword is gone; you should be free now!'  
  
'But still,' I insist, while trying my best to hold on to her tighter and to keep her from falling - the way Midir would. He is not too keen on the regular, everyday touching, like handshakes and stuff; but catching someone when they are about to fall - that is definitely a very Midir thing to do.  
  
'We'll get to him together,' I tell Ria - without adding what I hear in my thoughts. That, once I've faced what I did, I might need some more punching.  
  
  
When the motionless dark spot in the snow comes into view, Ria almost breaks into a run, shoving me (maybe inadvertently, and maybe not) in the ribs with her elbow and tearing herself away from me, to make a few long, strained leaps to cover the remaining distance - like a bird that has been shot in the wing by an arrow. Her ankle fails her just as she reaches Midir, and she throws herself on her knees by his side, clasping his hand in hers.  
  
As an Imperial, she is naturally swarthier than most people I have seen around me while growing up. But when she lifts Midir's fingers and presses them to her cheek, her skin appears almost as dark as freshly tilled soil, against the horrible, blood-chilling pallor of his.  
  
When I catch up with Ria, I also sink down, while my head gets... strangely empty, as if a powerful blow from behind had made my brains fall out. All I can do is stare.  
  
My gaze travels up and down Midir's frozen face, with these closed eyes and sunken, grey-shadowed cheeks, and tightly pursed, purplish thread of two thin lips. Takes in his frail, exposed neck and the carpet of loosened hair underneath him, just as starkly black as his skin is white, framing his face like a faded portrait of someone long, long gone. And gets dimmed by a stinging, hazy cloud when I notice the dark-crimson slash across his grey vest.  
  
'He is so cold,' Ria sobs - without shedding a single tear. 'We are late... We are late, aren't we? He is gone... He is gone...'  
  
Slowly, like in a dream, I reach out to touch Midir's other hand. His skin is, indeed, so cold to the touch that it almost scorches me. But at the same time, it is also firm, pulled taut over his bones, with no signs of turning thin and brittle and crumbling away into ash, the way it is supposed to happen when you fight... someone like him.  
  
And suddenly, the cloud disperses. Suddenly, my stomach is no longer contracting. Suddenly, my limbs aren't so stiff and numb. Suddenly, my brains return to their rightful place - and begin working, with a feverish (and at the same time, joyful) speed.   
  
'Of course he is cold!' I cry out, turning to look at Ria with a goofy grin that she meets with a dumbfounded stare. 'He is always cold! He is supposed to be cold! It's... It's his natural state!'  
  
Ria lets out an 'Ah!' of understanding. Her brains, too, appear to be recovering from a severe rattle.   
  
'Because he is...' she begins - then falters with a gulp, takes a breath, and finishes resolutely, 'A vampire'.  
  
There is a pause, of the sort that books tend to call 'pregnant' - and I am really, really scared that it might give birth to an ugly, screaming baby.  
  
Up until now, I have been very likely the only mortal in Skyrim who knew Midir's secret - and that, too, just because I found it out by accident, when he had to transform into this bulky bat... person to save me from a dragon. I don't know the full story behind how he became... unwell, as it hurts him too much to talk about it. But I know it had something to do with him being half-vampire from birth and thinking that proper vampires might take him in if he got bitten and changed into... into something more like them. Only the proper vampires turned out to be cruel, sadistic monsters, and Midir has been ashamed of what he is ever since.   
  
When Ria just joined our adventuring team, I remember Midir almost losing his mind with panic over the thought that 'this sweet sunshine child' might learn about his true nature. And I never would have willingly told her (even though, to be honest, I do not think it is anything to be so awfully ashamed of... Sure, it took some getting used to, but I much prefer prefer being friends with a vampire like Midir than with one of those creepy Vigilants of Stendarr).   
  
The sword, though, turned out to be far less respectful. I must have let it slip in my... Daedric potato sack state, and now Ria knows. She knows... And if Midir ever comes to... gods, it will crush him.  
  
He is a bit sweet on her, I think - the way he watches her when he thinks she is not looking (and oh, there was the matter of the little daffodil wreath which Ria found on her pillow one morning and which Midir insisted came from me). I even tried to tease him about it once, and he reacted by wrapping his hair around his face, like he always does when his shyness grows too strong to overcome. I don't think he'll be able to bear this - the thought that this girl he likes, the 'sweet summer child' he makes flower crowns for, has turned away from him because of what he is. I know I wouldn't... If there was a girl like that somewhere out there for me. I mean, I have plenty of, uh, admirers of different genders, what with me sort of being... yeah. But none of them has ever made me as flustered as Ria makes Midir when she gives him a smile. Gods, what a messy nervous ramble...  
  
Ria frowns. Ria thinks. The pause goes into labour. I have an overpowering urge to bite at my fingernails.   
  
But there is no screaming. No grimace of revulsion. No spit flying in Midir's direction. Instead, Ria just gives his fingers a little stroke, looks down at her still bleeding palm, then back at me - and says, in such a grave, hard voice that I could have easily mistaken her for her older, battle-honed comrade Aela,  
  
'If this is what he really is... Then I have a plan'.


	5. Chapter 5

It came out so much simpler than the way it is described in books. Just a moment to steady myself - and then, that short word, so casual, commonplace like a breath of air, accompanied by a tiny cloud of vapour.  
  
Vampire.  
  
And that was that. No prolonged gasps, no staggering and eye-rolling fainting fits, no flinging myself on the ground with the back of my hand pressed against my forehead (counting on somebody to catch me mid-way), no tearing out my hair and beating my chest and screaming how I had been betrayed, and how foolish I had been to allow a - what are they usually called - creature of the night to encroach... or ensnare... or entrap... something of the sort, anyway. Pretty sure it begins with 'en'.   
  
Perhaps I would have reacted differently, were my mind not so full of throbbing pain. This pain made it hard to keep track of any extra emotions, apart from the one that truly mattered. The gripping, bloodcurdling dread of losing Midir; the haunting thought, almost a silent scream, that this icy touch of his bony white fingers, so listless and obedient in my grasp, might turn out to be the last (and almost only) time I would ever get to hold him. And the image of this dreadful, endless evening finally dawning into a desolate day when I would have to continue my travels with no a small, shadowy figure to trot by my side, snorting faintly at my corny jokes and whispering to 'please be careful' when I come up with some wild idea to climb 'that big rock over there, shaped kind of like a bird leaning sideways... Drunk bird rock!'.  
  
I highly doubt that storybook vampires ever do any of this. That they ever patiently endure all the 'drunk bird rock' climbing and other antics of a scatterbrained youngster who thinks herself a great adventurer.   
  
Or that they ever put down cheery little notes in calligraphic handwriting and carefully place them next to the bedrolls of both this youngster and the legendary Dragonborn, so that the two travelling companions may start the morning with a smile, opening their eyes and turning their head to read something like 'The birch grove is cloaked in veils of pink and creamy silk; come see before they fade away!'.  
  
Or that they, these storybook vampires, ever weave pretty blue flowers out of ribbons of ghostly magic to cheer up, yes, again the very same youngster - a silly little Jorvaskr whelp who is sitting on a mossy stone in a cavern, and heaving long, jagged breaths, still petrified after seeing a Falmer for the first time.  
  
No, the vampires that you read about are a dark, sinister lot. They are cold, in every sense of the word: incapable of any sort of strong feelings except for that ravenous desire to 'feast'; cruel to the point that nothing makes them happier than peeling the skin off a person alive; maybe also leering and seductive (in a bad, shudder-inducing sort of way). Or at the very least, brooding like hens in a coop (again, until somebody finds them a suitable person to skin).  
  
Because of how beastly they all are, finding out that someone is a vampire in a book is supposed to shock you, make you throw down the poor little volume and flail your arms, and curse the name of the character that revealed themselves as bloodsucking fiend (usually with a flap of a cape and a thunderbolt splitting the night sky in the background), and swear off liking them ever again...   
  
But this is not a book. This is real. The darkening sky overhead is real, with no thunderbolts in sight among the powdery billows of snow. The pallid Wood Elf lying before me is real: the real companion of the real Dragonborn, and my real, dear, gentle friend. And the dark blood oozing from his wound is real as well.  
  
Blood. This is what has given me this idea. Vampires drink blood - and even though Midir has nothing else in common with them (he cannot even hold on to a cape long enough without giving it away to a freezing street urchin), he ought to drink blood too.  
  
Come to think of it, I have never seen him eat anything more filling than a few polite nibbles (say, to please the grateful farmers that are treating us to a good, hearty Nord meal, after we have chased off some beastie or other from their land); and when he goes out to hunt for supper, the game he brings back always seems to have these odd little scuff marks in its fur, like an imprint of a small, narrow jaw... Well, that makes sense now. And reaffirms my little plan.  
  
'My palm is still bleeding,' I say to the Dragonborn, as I cautiously let go of Midir's fingers, placing them over his chest, and then extend the hand with which I grabbed at that blasted sword. 'And your nose is, too. Sorry about that again... I do hope it's not badly broken... But at least now we can put this to use... Like... uh... collect our blood - maybe mix it with a healing potion? And, um, feed him... A... tasty snack and some medicine all in one'.  
  
It is only after I speak these words that I realize that I have made myself sound like a priestess of Mara giving some worried mother advice how to treat her sick child. And again, this does not seem to bother me in the slightest.  
  
The Dragonborn sniffs.  
  
'I have a satchel with potions in my tent, I think,' he says, a little thickly. 'This... This is actually a brilliant idea! Thank you - thank you for not...'  
  
He sniffs again, but I do not need him to finish to understand what he is saying.  
  
He is struggling to thank me for not bolting and running. For not pulling one of the tent pegs out of the ground and hammering it into Midir's heart. For not finishing what the sword obviously wanted the Dragonborn to start. For not changing my mind, for not abandoning our Bosmer friend - for continuing to side with him throughout this crazy nightmare. The way he would have sided with us. With either of us. Always.  
  
'This is Midir we are talking about,' I say to the Dragonborn, before bending sideways and prying off a long shard of ice crust off a small snowdrift nearby, to pick at my burns and make them squish out more blood. 'Could you get that satchel for me, please?'  
  
He readily gets up and crosses our little campsite to dive into his tent - where... gods, it seems like a whole age ago... he was sleeping with his unsettling trophy next to him, while Midir and I were talking about how much he had changed.  
  
As I wait for him, I am rather startled by my own calm. Naturally, it hurts when I dig at my raw, reddened flesh with the thawing shard, keeping my fingers cupped so that the warm red liquid may pool up better. But on the inside, I am completely collected... As though cutting myself and letting a wounded vampire drink my blood is part of my evening routine, like washing my face and picking bits of food out of my teeth, before slipping off my cuirass and ducking into my bedroll.   
  
Aela would have been proud of me, I suppose. I have come up with a plan and am following it through, with my mind firm and steady like a pulled-back bowstring, and my eyes fixed on the target - in this case, the target being a future embrace with Midir, very long and very tight despite all his shy little squeaks, to celebrate him coming back to me. To us. To - to the world, I mean.  
  
'Here it is!' the Dragonborn announces, emerging from behind the tattered canvas with a bulging, clanking little leather pouch clasped in his fist.   
  
He is using his free hand to pick his swollen, bulbous, purplish nose, wincing as he does that. I guess that, like myself, he is trying to intensify the bleeding - but still, I cannot but smile at his rather comical expression. He snickers too, and says apologetically,  
  
'I hope there won't be too much snot and stuff'.  
  
I respond with an exaggerated 'Blech', and think to myself, unexpectedly, how I appreciate the Dragonborn during moments like this. When he is not a mighty warrior, the master of the Thu'Um, but a simple, open-hearted child from a sleepy little hamlet, not at all unlike myself. Gods... I was so scared that I would not see that child again, that he would be lost to that angry flame forever... And yet, here he is. Not completely like his usual self, of course - he is still quite shaken up after getting... possessed like that. But still. He has returned. Does this mean Midir will return too?  
  
With a small 'Oof', the Dragonborn lowers himself by Midir's side again. His nose-picking has done its job: there are little red streams running down the lower half of his face, over the already hardened crust of the first blood splatter from our struggle on the cliff's edge. He has drawn a single pinkish potion bottle from the pouch, pressing the rest between his knees, and uncorked it with his teeth; now, he is holding it close to his face, pressing its neck over his flared-up nostril. The glass, though foggy, is still transparent enough for me to see the ruby trickle slither down the bottle's side, and then mix with the potion, whirling into a curious sort of wavy dark pattern in the pink depths of the liquid, rather like the feathery traces of time on the window pane.  
  
My blood comes next. I accept the bottle from the Dragonborn in a very slow, cautious movement, doing my utmost not to spill a single droplet of either the potion, no the precious red drink in my slashed-up hand. Then, I clap the bottleneck against my cupped palm, so that a bit of skin gets sucked in, and swing it a little bit from side to side, supporting it with my unburnt fingers. The motion makes the contents slosh around, gradually turning into a smooth, deep-red mix.   
  
With a loud noise that turns out rather rude (and makes me smile, despite the tears that well up in my eyes because of a new stinging touch of pain), I tear my sword-burnt palm away from the bottle and turn back to the Dragonborn, who has, in the meanwhile, propped up Midir's torso a little bit against his knees, posing the poor listless shape so that it would be easier to do our... feeding.  
  
'All right, here comes the snack,' I whisper, something small and alive and very jittery racing back and forth through my innards. There goes my Aela-like calm. My hands better not tremble - because if they do, if I botch this, I will do all those things that I threatened to do to the Dragon born, only this time to myself.  
  
They do end up trembling - but I manage to get a grip on myself. I slip the bottleneck between Midir's lips, while supporting his head as best I can with the back of my bleeding hand. For some reason, I really, really don't want to sully his pure white skin with any red stains...  To avoid making him look like one of those half-mad, voracious blood fiends, I suppose. Luckily, the Dragonborn is holding Midir, too, so I don't have to fumble too much.  
  
At first, the glass merely clanks against Midir's upper teeth (I do not even notice if they are as pointy as the books say... And I don't really care, either). But eventually, Erik and I do manage to pry Midir's mouth open, and in goes our mixture, washing down his throat... With no response whatsoever, as if he were just another lifeless, indifferent vessel we were pouring the potion into.  
  
A few moments pass, and the horrid thoughts of travels without Midir, for ever and ever more, visit my mind again, and drain me of all the strength that I have summoned in order to focus on not messing this up. Now, these thoughts - they behave like proper old-school vampires. They are cruel to me, and cold, and so very hungry for my pain.  
  
Silence hangs over the snowy cliff, heavy and oppressive like one of the clouds that keep belching up these endless flurries. I almost lose hope that it will ever be broken - but it is. Suddenly, miraculously, it is. By a hoarse little cough - and then the steady, grateful and greedy little glug-glug-glug, as Midir finishes up our potion all by himself.  
  
It worked. By the Divines - by the horker-humpin' Ysgramor! - it worked. It actually worked! Midir is with us... with me... with... Midir is here again!   
  
The potion appears to be taking effect; it is hard to tell exactly how well, since there is no healthy flush on Midir's cheeks. But at least his eyelashes flutter, and his fingers twitch, clawing blindly at the front of his vest.  
  
This little motion, just the tiniest ghost of it, startles me, and I drop the bottle, struck dumb with joy and relief. The last dregs of the blood mixture splatter over Midir's clothes and the snow around him, so that when he tries to open his eyes, half-lidded and with the dim yellow glow barely flickering in them, the first thing that he sees are blurred spots of dark crimson.  
  
Midir's nostrils flare, as he appears to be taking in the smell of blood; after getting a prolonged sniff, he shudders and throws his eyes wide open, bolting upright and glancing wildly around him.  
  
He catches a glimpse of the Dragonborn sooner than myself (this sends a not at all pleasant little jolt through my heart, which feels like it has deflated a little). And when their eyes meet, Midir lifts his arm, his movements jerking like those of a badly oiled Dwemer apparatus (I had to fight one once; the thing was ancient and rusty, bug still managed to give me a thorough thrashing before Midir charged in and diverted the construct's attention to himself). His fingertips just barely hover over the Dragonborn's neck, seeking out something on the sliver of flesh between the strands of hair falling from his head and the beginning of that thick Nordic stubble.  
  
'Erik...' Midir mouths, on the verge of tears. 'I... I couldn't... I wouldn't... Except... In self-defense... You... You had the sword... I... I didn't mean to...'  
  
What he is saying does not really make a lot of sense - but I still understand him, with almost absolute certainty.  
  
He is looking for puncture marks.  
  
'It's all right,' I assure him, my deflated little heart recovering somewhat when Midir swivels his head to look at me.  
  
'It's all right. You can smell the Dragonborn's... Erik's blood because he fed it to you. Together with a healing potion. To help you recover. There was a bit of my blood in there too...'  
  
'You...' Midir presses his hands against his face, and my heart deflates again - this time, with much more force. 'You fed me... You let me drink your blood... Of your own accord? No... Please don't let this be true... My friends... My only friends... I thought we could... I thought this would last forever... But now I have... I have had a taste...'  
  
'Why are you so upset?' the Dragonborn asks, genuinely puzzled. 'We healed you, didn't we? It was Ria's idea, by the way! She is so smart!'  
  
Gods, and now I am starting to feel ashamed I ever sulked when Midir turned to the Dragonborn first!  
  
'You don't understand...' Midir explains absently, his eyes beginning to dart to and fro, like he has been trapped and is feverishly searching for a way to escape. 'After a first taste... I might start craving more... I am a danger to you now... To you both... A danger to my own friends...'  
  
'Don't be like this!' the Dragonborn cries out - and I join him silently. 'You are not a danger to us! I... I was a danger to you - because of that cursed sword!'  
  
'Meridia's blade was right,' Midir cuts him short, not even letting him apologize (which I know he has been intending to, by the flush on his face at the very least).   
  
'I am nothing but filth. The only fate someone like me deserves is to be... cleansed. Or, if you choose to be... merciful - then, to be left alone. I cannot hurt anyone if I am alone'.  
  
And before either the Dragonborn or I can do anything, Midir disappears in a cloud of bats, which whip up towards the sky, slapping us in the face with their wings.


	6. Chapter 6

'Look! They are heading in there!'   
  
The Dragonborn points at the narrow gorge between two enormous chunks of ice, which are rising even taller than our cliff. The bats are indeed, heading in there, snaking their way into the blue semi-darkness that fills the gap between the massive slabs, which keeps growing denser further and further away from view.  
  
'I'll go after them... him; try to bring him back!'   
  
'No'.  
  
Somehow, my voice comes out deep and low, almost like a man's.  
  
'I mean...' I clear my throat and rephrase my objection sheepishly, chastising myself for being so rude to the hero of Skyrim this whole day. 'Dragonborn... Erik... Please. Let me go instead. If you try to reason with him, he'll just bring up the sword and how "right" it was all over again. Me, though - I can assure him that... even now that I know... I do not think he's dangerous'.  
  
The Dragonborn still looks doubtful. He picks up his satchel again and fingers through the motley bunch of many-coloured bottles and phials that remain inside.  
  
‘I don't think there are any potent healing ones left,' he comments, folding back the cloth of the satchel along the rim so that I might see what he is holding. 'Just enough for smallish scrapes and cuts and...'  
  
While he is still muttering something about the potions, his voice so small and filled with indecision that I can barely hear him, I spot a fat, round flask with a long, tall neck. It is filled with glimmering greenish liquid, which I instantly recognize the distillation of some flower petals and insect wings that Midir prepared just the other day, when we stopped by an abandoned alchemy station in a Nordic ruin.... Especially for me.  
  
'Erik is so... overzealous these days,' he told me quietly, squinting in the acrid smoke that the cobwebbed potion-brewing apparatus kept coughing out, with all sorts of odd rumbling noises, as if it was annoyed with us and kept grumbling about being woken up.  
  
'This will help you keep up with him better - I hope'.  
  
Well, now it appears that he is the one who needs keeping up with. And this herb-and-wing brew is as good a way of doing that as any.  
  
'I will take this one,' I announce, snatching the fat bottle out of the Dragonborn's hands. 'It's suppose to help with your stamina. Make you run farther and faster for a short while. I will get to that gorge before my foot even realizes it is hurting'.  
  
The Dragonborn opens his mouth to speak - but I do not let him. May this be my last display of rudeness to the great hero for the day. And forever after - because once I bring Midir back, things will return to normal, and we shall turn into three adventuring friends again.  
  
The thought makes me smile, as I down the stamina draught in one loud gulp. The smile tickles my face with a little tingle, which spreads through the rest of my body as the mixture travels down my throat, like the mellow warm glow of Nord mead, only without the sickly wooziness that comes after (I can never get used to that part, which makes me a very cautious drinker - and a 'boring' one, too, according to Torvar).  
  
The tingle sustains me while I spring up and sprint forward, following the bats into the dark blue passageway, with the snow drifts rushing by me as if someone is flapping long snatches of white cloth on either side of my path.  
  
The potion's effect subsides when I am already halfway down the passage between the ice slabs; and it is only then that the pain in my foot resurges again, making me hop around in a rather lame impression of a crane or a stork, pressing my palms against one of the two blue walls for support. I cry out, too - and my voice echoes through the passage in a strangely warped away, as if I have plunged my head underwater. The ice slabs respond to the echo with an eerie crackle that sends a discomforted shiver up my spine. It certainly wouldn't be too jolly to have a bit of all that rock-solid ice get chipped off and fall right onto me. But still - now that I can't run, I must use the only thing that appears to be effective in this cramped, dark, cold place: my voice.   
  
'Midir!' I call out, shrinking my neck into my shoulders when the crackling repeats again - much louder this time, aggressively almost. 'Midir! Are you still in here? Please come back!'  
  
'Come back! Come back!' the echo demands, throbbing in my ears till my eyes begin to tear up. The crackling mounts to a shrill grating noise, while hair-thin white lines rush from the top of the wall opposite the one I am clinging to, like traces from tears on its blue icy cheek - and then, something seems to snap in the heart of the ice, and, getting shaken loose the way a rotten tooth would, a large, boulder-like lump comes crushing down right onto the spot where I stand.  
  
I barely have time to gasp and shuffle helplessly half a step along the wall, when everything around me gets suddenly filled with billows of coal-black smoke, and something unseen but very strong whisks me off in the same wild rush as when I sprinted through the snow under the potion's influence. The force with which I am yanked away from the wall peels a thin layer of skin off my palms, but my mind is not given enough time to process that.  
  
My head swims, and for a moment I lose my grasp of which way is up and which is down; the whole world around me seems to melt away; shapes get smudged and multiplied and whirled into dizzying patterns - and for a moment, I catch myself wondering if this is how a little birch leaf feels when it is carried by the autumn wind.  
  
When the smoke clears, I discover that I have been brought to the other side of the icy gorge, which opens right onto the sea shore (the passage must have led a long way downhill, and I haven't even noticed). It has stopped snowing, and the sky opens before me in such a vast expanse that I lift both of my raw, burning hands to my mouth, with a little 'Aw!' of admiration. Against the background of rich dark blue, the first wisps of northern lights are beginning to appear, jade and emerald-green and vivid turquoise, with the little silver specks of stars pulsing serenely in between.   
  
I would not have said 'No' to lingering here for a while and watching the inky swell of the sea as it begins to reflect the dazzling colours overhead... But I am broken out of my reverie by the sound of Midir's voice, much less soft than usual... not angry, exactly - rather, deeply hurt.  
  
'Did you do that on purpose? Put yourself in danger to... lure me out? What if I didn't come to your side in time? What if you...'  
  
I blink in confusion, and a dark spot in the corner of my eye suddenly shapes itself into Midir, small and huddled up, as if from the cold, his hair falling in messy, billowing strands over his pained face.  
  
'I... No, it wasn't on purpose, I swear!' I cry out, reaching forward to take his hand, even though his touch will probably hurt my longsuffering flesh even more. 'I just wanted to talk! On behalf of myself and Erik! I...'  
  
'Just as well,' Midir says gravely, looking into my eyes with the air of someone who is about to take a long dive from a steep cliff. 'I... I lied when I said why I wanted to be alone. Well, in part, anyway. I was also... I was terrified of facing you like this and hearing you say how much you hate me'.  
  
And again, the world turns into a blur - but this time because, without thinking, without paying attention to my pounding ankle, I toss myself at Midir and lock him into that hug I have pictured in my mind with such detail.  
  
'I don't hate you!' I breathe, burying my face in his hair and clenching my hands into fists so as not to leave any more blood smears on his clothing. 'I would never hate you! No more than you would hate Erik for becoming possessed by that stupid sword!'  
  
'That was temporary,' Midir objects, stepping away from me - but instantly edging close again when he sees that I cannot stand firmly. 'That was not part of Erik's nature. In my case, this is the way I always am. A dangerous beast with a hunger for blood'.  
  
Under other circumstances, I would likely have tried to hug him again - because it does hurt to hear him talk of himself like this... But right here and now, I burst out laughing - because Midir calls himself a beast... while healing my injured ankle.  
  
When he looks up in wonder from his spellcasting, I give him a broad grin and say,  
  
'By that logic, I should be a cunning, ruthless politician or something! And here I am, as Nord-like as you get, with no "Imperial nature" acting up! You have never harmed anyone before - and I am sure you never will!'  
  
'But I have tasted your blood!' he reminds me again, as he moves over to heal my hands (with his eyes closed and his expression racked with guilt).  
  
'This does not change anything,' I insist, drawing myself up to my full height now that I can finally put pressure on my newly fixed foot. Even though Midir cannot see my stance, it somehow seems to make me stronger. More assured. More prepared to keep talking sense into him until he finally agrees to come back.  
  
'One sip of mead does not instantly turn someone into a drunk - same with you and one sip of blood. If you don't want to travel with me because I am a useless, bothersome tagalong on your and the Dragonborn's epic quests - then fine. That is your right. But please don't walk away because you think you might hurt me, or him - or because you think you are... any of the nasty things you mentioned. Because you aren't. You are one of the purest, kindest souls I have ever met. I...'  
  
Will it be too much - to say that I care about him, and a great deal, too? To confess that I find him incredibly handsome? To mention that dream I had once about... about kissing him - a dream which I almost proceeded to act out, when I woke up and found one of his notes on my pillow?   
  
Yes, probably. Probably way too much. It will make it sound that I want him to come back for my sake... Which I kind of do, honestly - but I also want him to come back for his own sake. So that he can continue helping the Dragonborn save lives, continue sharing comfort and kindness - and maybe one day, see himself for what he truly is. Not a beast. Not a monster from a scary book. But a sweet, gentle mer with beautiful, sincere golden eyes.  
  
'I beg you... please - give yourself a chance. Please allow us all to return to our travels. All three of us. Or - or just you and the Dragonborn,  if you wish. As long as you don't give up on doing you what you are so wonderful at. Helping people'.  
  
'The Dragonborn...' he repeats after me, with his eyes now wide open again, apparently struck by some thought. 'Yes... I am - I am duty-bound to travel with the Dragonborn. Thank you for reminding me of this. And allow me to say that…’  
  
He swallows nervously.  
‘Having you around… It… It has never been useless, or bothersome. I am quite…’  
  
He swallows again.  
  
‘I am quite happy travelling with you and Erik. I will just have to - to be more demanding to myself. More vigilant. More...'  
  
'Kind,' I cut in, resting my healed hands on his shoulders and holding his gaze for as long as I can before my heart's fluttering gets too frantic to keep breathing properly. 'You need to be more kind to yourself'.  
  
Before I step away and motion at the gorge we left behind, I think I see Midir tilt his head and part his lips... as though he might be intending to... No, that's probably my book-stuffed head playing tricks on me. And those lights. They make a perfect setting for doing something melodramatic.


End file.
